Uhm, the apples exploded...

If you know me, you know that cooking is not high on my list of things I like to do. Not because I don't like making food, but more so because I'm intimidated by the kitchen. My childhood/young adulthood didn't really afford me the opportunity to learn how to cook. When it comes to "cooking" without assistance I can make great scrambled eggs and over easy eggs, but that's about it without the aid of a cookbook. My "home cooked" dinners were frozen dinners tossed into the microwave. It didn't take long for Gabby (my dog) to learn that the microwave "ding" meant dinner was done.

Usually, though, I can do ok when armed with a cook book...and boy do I have cookbooks. Again, it's not that I don't want to cook, it's that I'm intimidated. On almost every trip to the grocery store I would pick up one of those handy cookbooks they keep in the checkout lines. Fortunately I started in the last few years to shop online, so I've been able to avoid those.

Anyway, that's enough background, I think.

So last night both Cori and I thought baked apples sounded yummy. I've made those before, so I thought "I can do this." I usually turn to Betty (Crocker) for assistance in these situations, but I decided to see what recipes the fine folks at the Food Network would suggest. I read thru a couple. Hmmm..."Cut a strip of peel off each apple around it's equator so the apple will not explode in the oven. That's a bit intimidating." But, you know, I've never had any apples explode before. I went on to a different recipe. As this sounds good, and no mention of apples exploding. I'll do this one.

The recipe was very simple. It's directions said to remove a .5" strip of the skin around the top. I assume it's for the same reason. So off goes at least a half inch, more in some places. Everything goes smoothly and the apples are popped into the oven to bake for 45 minutes to and hour as directed.

About a half hour into cooking we hear a somewhat loud pop noise from the vicinity of the kitchen.

Laura: What was that?
Cori:What?
Laura:Didn't you hear that noise?
Cori:Yes
Laura:Well, what was it. Then the lightbulb Uhm, do you think the apples exploded?
Cori:No. It was probably just the oven.

She seemed pretty confident, so I didn't check on the apples. But I did notice that I hadn't really smelled the apples cooking before, and then in what seemed like an instant I really smelled them. Hmmm.

I went out to check them after the 45 minutes. Pulled them out of the oven. They certainly smelled good. They were covered with foil (as per the recipe). I pulled back the foil and....oh no........Uhm, Cori...the apples exploded.

Imagine a casserole bowl full of apple sauce, with bits of apple skin here and there. Hmm, not quite the yummy dessert we had pictured. Turned out to be ok. Basically we had apple pie filling without the crust. Which works for me, because the crust is one part of the pie I never eat anyway. A little ice cream and I was set. However I think next time I'll take the strip off around the equator just in case. I really wanted a baked apple.